
MEMORIAL 



BENJAMIN HARRISON 



MEMORIAL MEETING 



THE BAR OF INDIANA 



UPON THE OCCASION OF THE DEATH OF 



BENJAMIN HARRISON 



INDIANAPOLIS, SATURDAY, MARCH SIXTEEN, NINETEEN 

HUNDRED & ONE, IN THE SENATE CHAMBER, UPON 

THE CALL OF THE STATE BAR ASSOCIATION 

OF INDIANA & THE INDIANAPOLIS 

BAR ASSOCIATION 



PUBLISHED BY THE 



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STATE BAR ASSOCIATION. ef^iM>IANA 



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PRINTED AT THE HOLLENBECK PRESS 
NINETEEN HUNDRED & ONE 



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PROCEEDINGS OF THE MEETING IN MEMORY 



BENJAMIN HARRISON 



HELD BY THE 



BAR OF INDIANA AND INDIANAPOLIS IN THE SENATE CHAMBER 

AT INDIANAPOLIS, MARCH SIXTEEN 

NINETEEN HUNDRED & ONE 



The Bar of Indiana met in the Senate chamber at two 
o'clock in the afternoon. The meeting was called to order 
by the Hon. Theodore P. Davis, president of the State Bar 
Association, who said: 

"The members of the Indiana and Marion County Bar 
Associations have met to take appropriate action on the 
death of our eminent and esteemed brother, General Harri- 
son. The executive officers of the two associations have 
selected Judge William A. Woods to preside over the meet- 
ing." 

Judge Woods, upon taking the chair, spoke as follows : 

Gentlemen — I am sensible of the great honor implied in 
being designated to preside over a meeting, like this, of law- 
yers of the state and city, assembled for so notable a purpose. 
I am not vain enough, however, to think the distinction a 



personal one merely or mainly. It is due rather to the office 
which I hold and to the fact that I hold it by the appointment 
of President Harrison. 

We are assembled as members of the bar associations of 
the state and city to do honor to the memory of Benjamin 
Harrison, whose mortal remains lie in state in the corridors 
below. As lawyers we naturally think of him primarily as 
a lawyer, but any adequate estimate of his character must 
be far more comprehensive. A man may be a great lawyer 
without being a statesman, but no one who is not a great 
lawyer can take first rank as a statesman. A thoroughly 
equipped all-round lawyer, possessed of great natural abili- 
ties, with faculties trained to ready obedience to a strong will, 
readily adapts himself to the emergencies of any situation. 
If for the purpose of a case in which he is employed it be- 
comes necessary to master and appropriate the knowledge of 
a specialist on a subject, he can do it, and if from the walks 
of his profession he is called to the service of his country, 
whether in low or high station, in one department or another, 
he is better prepared to meet any possible demand upon him 
than one not a lawyer could be. No better illustration of the 
lawyer's adaptability to meet emergencies of the most deli- 
cate and varying character could be presented than Harrison 
in the office of president. If it became necessary to take into 
his own hands the portfolio of a secretary he was able to 
do it, not only without loss, but in notable instances, with 
great advantage to the public service, — just because he pos- 
sessed the legal training which his secretary of state, the 
most brilliant public man of his day and country, lacked. 

I first met Mr. Harrison, and heard him speak, in the 
campaign of i860, at Crawfordsville. In all the years since 
I have never heard a political speaker who impressed me 
4 



more profoundly. Much, of course, was due to the circum- 
stances. He was a young man, and I some years younger, 
and just out of college, with professional ambitions which 
made me the more observant of one who was but starting 
in his career. He was, as I knew, the grandson of a presi- 
dent, and it struck me then that he might well aspire — per- 
haps was destined — to succeed to the same distinction. As 
the years went by and he grew in force as an orator and in 
leadership, and many years before his nomination to the 
presidency, I became convinced that his elevation to that 
office was probable. 

General Harrison, of course, could not escape his environ- 
ment, and necessarily was affected in character and in career 
by the circumstances of his life. But he was in no sense an 
accident. Great in ancestry he has been greater in himself. 
His eminence and success in professional and public life 
were deserved, because they were earned. They were at 
once the result and the just reward of great gifts and great 
attainments, devoted through a lifetime to the thorough 
performance of every duty and undertaking as he came to 
them. Of the statesmen and lawyers of his day I know of 
none whom I would pronounce his superior. Of all the 
men in public life whom I have known there is none whom 
I have regarded as quite his all-round equal. In his very 
nature it was impossible that he should sacrifice or swerve 
from his well matured beliefs or opinions, when fundamental 
principles in morals or in government were involved. 

Just now the public is not thinking so much of his earlier 
career and doings as of his recent attitude and utterances. 
More than by any message which he ever sent to congress, 
the heart of the country has been stirred by what he has said 
and written upon the questions brought upon the country 
5 



by the result of the Spanish war. These questions, however, 
are burning questions, which we must debate to the end, but 
their merits will be determined only in the calmer perspective 
of the future. But, whatever the final judgment, the name 
of Harrison, as citizen, soldier, statesman, patriot and philan- 
thropist shall shine with undiminished luster. 

At the conclusion of the remarks of Judge Woods, Mr. 
Ovid B. Jameson, president of the Indianapolis Bar Associa- 
tion, moved that the following named persons serve as com- 
mittee on memorial : 

Robert S. Taylor, of Fort Wayne; 

Timothy E. Howard, of South Bend ; 

JuDSON H^ARMON, of Cincinnati ; 

George W. Grubbs^ of Martinsville ; 

William H. H. Miller, 

John S. Duncan, 

William A. Ketcham, 

Howard Gale and 

Harry J. Milligan, of Indianapolis. 
The motion was adopted by a unanimous vote, and the 
committee withdrew to prepare the memorial. 

When the committee had withdrawn, the chairman called 
upon the Hon. John V. Hadley, of the Supreme Court of 
Indiana, who spoke as follows : 

REMARKS OF JUDGE HADLEY. 

As an all round man, mentally and morally. General Har- 
rison has had, perhaps, no superior, and few equals in this 
country. As a lawyer, as a statesman, as the chief executive 
officer of the national government, as a writer, as a consistent 
6 



exponent of the Christian rehgion, he was pre-eminent. 
Strong as he was in every station where the fortunes of life 
cast him, he mastered no vocation as he did that of our pro- 
fession ; and I beHeve I do no gentleman, in this learned 
presence, injustice, to say that he stood conspicuously first at 
the bar of this state. His earliest and fiercest contests were 
at the forum, where his achievements advanced him, within 
my recollection, from the little leased cottage into a compe- 
tency, and into a preparedness for the highest duties imposed 
upon an American citizen. He not only learned but practiced 
the law as an exact science. His pleadings were models of 
clearness and conciseness. His cases always ready for trial 
when called, so far as he was responsible. He had unusual 
tact in finding authorities, and studied those against, as well 
as those supportive of his position. Having familiarized 
himself with the facts and evidence and determined upon the 
theory of his case, he clothed it with legal principles, and a 
logical arrangement of the evidence. No important witness 
could testify till his time came, nor until he had heard from 
the witness's lips the testimony he would give. I have some- 
times thought that his greatest element of strength as a trial 
lawyer was in the cross-examination of witnesses. He had 
most extraordinary skill in exposing falsehood. A keenness 
of perception that overlooked no foolish word, no unnatural 
embarrassment, no uneasy manner, and no evidence of dis- 
honest testimony. An honest witness with a consistent story 
had nothing to fear at his hands, but the dishonest witness, 
with a lie upon his tongue, was in constant peril. Such a 
witness he would politely lead along, first over easy ground, 
cautiously testing him here and there by the standard of 
truth, and when fully convinced of his prevarication, would 
proceed to conduct, or drive him, as the case required, into 

7 



such inconsistencies or contradictions as would bar retreat, 
and then, with merciless energy and directness, accomplish 
the witness's overthrow. The activity and far reaching 
sweep of his thoughts while engaged in this exercise were 
wonderful. When a witness was turned to him, before pro- 
ceeding, he would seem to cast the search light of his percep- 
tion over the manner of the witness, and the testimony he 
had given, noting whether consistent and strong, or weak 
and assailable ; if unassailable, his course was to avoid em- 
phasizing it to the jury by dismissing the witness without a 
question, but if vulnerable, before asking a question, he 
would decide upon his objectives, and in proceeding he 
would not propound a single interrogatory that did not have 
behind it a particular purpose. A general, rambling exam- 
ination, that had no other aim than to confuse the witness, 
was foreign to his method. 

As an advocate he was peculiarly forcible but not eloquent 
as the term is usually employed. He never lost the attention 
of the jury, and never sought victory by indulgence in flow- 
ers of speech, nor by appeals to prejudice or passion; but 
by the plain, simple, easy logic of which he was the master, 
he made his appeals to the sounder and more enduring side 
of the human judgment. His intercourse with the court, 
and opposing counsel, was winsomely polite. His manner 
was dignified ; his candor impressive ; and his logic irresisti- 
ble. 

The late strength of his mind was hardly more due to the 
natural strength of his intellect, than to the wise and un- 
yielding discipline to which he always subjected his thought 
and conduct. He did everything by rule and in regular 
season. Whatever thing he took up was, by logical gradients, 
thoroughly finished before it was laid down, or another as- 
8 



sumed. He accepted nothing as truth that was not supported 
by what was to him satisfactory evidence. Expediency and 
popular opinion when founded upon error were uniformly 
rejected. His aim was to gain something by every working 
hour, and to conform his life, in thought and action, to truth 
in the concrete, as he was able to see the truth, avoiding 
redundancy of speech, frivolous waste of mental energy and 
indulgence in unprofitable pleasures. By nature of rich en- 
dowment, by habit ceaselessly methodical and industrious, by 
close application to books, by daily contest and struggle with 
problems and propositions arising in the affairs of a busy life, 
he grew, as the oak grows, mighty, by contending with oppo- 
sition forces. His greatness and renown were not spasmodic, 
nor phenomenal, but of steady, ceaseless, progressive growth, 
and upon the fateful day upon which he was stricken, he 
was stronger than upon the yesterday. His intellectual 
achievements were wonderful. In his impromptu addresses, 
in respect to instantaneous comprehension of the subject and 
its environments, in the logical arrangement of his ideas, in 
the terseness, clearness, and forcefulness of expression, in 
the simplicity and appropriateness of his words, I am 
not able to recall an equal. His utterances were uni- 
formly so elegant and polished and free from verbiage as to 
require a rare critic to distinguish between those made ex- 
tempore, and those upon preparation. In his last appearance 
before the supreme court, his argument was extemporane- 
ous, but taken, printed, and filed, as the principal brief in the 
case. His life was well lived and conspicuously successful. 
It was a life consistent, strong, useful, and absolutely free, 
in my judgment, from the obstructing and weakening in- 
fluences of vice or excess. 



At the conclusion of Judge Hadley's remarks, Judge Tay- 
lor, as chairman of the memorial committee, presented the 
following : 



MEMORIAL. 

Nature achieves her best only rarely. She tries her hand 
on a thousand lawyers to produce one great one. It takes 
her best stuff, her happiest combination, her finest finish to 
do it. All wise men respect lawyers, but only lawyers know 
each other. We measure ourselves by ourselves. We stand 
up together and we know who is tallest. We wrestle with 
each other and learn who is strongest. We study each other 
as men of no other profession can. We are constantly in 
each other's sight. We take turns as players and critics. 
Our judgments of each other are just, but inexorable. No 
shams deceive us ; no excellence fails of recognition. Hence 
it is that to be accounted a great lawyer by lawyers is one of 
the highest certificates of greatness that men can bestow. 

Millions of citizens turn their thoughts to-day to the 
memory of Benjamin Harrison. To most of them he was 
the great statesman ; the strong, wise, patriotic, good presi- 
dent. To the diminishing band of veterans of the war for 
the Union he was, besides that, the gallant soldier, the 
comrade in arms. To us he was, besides both, and more 
than either, the greatest lawyer of our state and time. 

Not all great lawyers are safe models. Strong idiosyn- 
cracies tempt mediocre men to weak imitations. It is easier 
to copy a man's gesture than the sweep of his thought. Gen- 
eral Harrison offered no such temptation to us. He had no 
extravagances. He had not a quality which a young man 
lO 



could not be advised to follow — if he could. Never were a 
lawyer's powers more evenly balanced. 

When you heard him argue a law question to the court, 
you thought that was where he must be strongest. When 
he addressed the jury, that seemed his appropriate place. 
To the dishonest witness writhing under his cross-examina- 
tion, he was an avenging fate. In the office or the court 
room, before judge or jury, dealing with law or facts, he 
was everywhere alike the same strong, tactful, perfectly 
equipped lawyer. 

To name all the strong characteristics of such a man would 
be to make a catalogue of human excellences. But there are 
two that may be mentioned with prominence. The first is 
clearness and simplicity of thought and style. He never 
spoke or wrote a vague, unintelligible sentence. Behind 
this, of course, was the vigor of intellect which resolved all 
things to their final elements. He never let go a problem 
half worked out. The analysis was finished, the conclusion 
demonstrated in his own mind before his thought was ut- 
tered. Then it came clothed in words transparent to its 
sense. 

While these were the predominating characteristics of his 
speech, — strength, clearness, directness, it was remarkable 
also for beauty of diction, felicity of illustration and that 
subtile touch of humor which imparts the highest quality to 
all oratory. A bit of sarcasm stinging like the thrust of a 
cambric needle, a metaphor so unexpected and appropriate 
that it was wit and argument in one, a caricature so dextrous 
that it was like a flash-light of ridicule, these were the inci- 
dents of a style which charmed while it instructed and con- 
vinced. But they were always subordinate to the solid 
thought. They never interrupted the argument. They were 
II 



like a delicate tracery of ornament on a massive stone col- 
umn. 

The other characteristic referred to was the unexhausted 
reserve of power which remained, and of which his hearer 
was distinctly conscious when he had spoken. He never 
strained his strength to its limit. He rather restrained him- 
self to the occasion. He said enough. He refrained from 
more because he had said enough. 

General Harrison came to his work as a lawyer under a 
disadvantage. He was handicapped by a great ancestral 
name. Thoughtless persons fancy that such a name is an 
advantage. It is not so to a lawyer. The first condition of 
his success is to live it down, to show what he is within and 
of himself. This the young man Harrison did. The older 
man Harrison, triumphant in his own right in every field 
which he entered, revived the memory of the relationship 
and gave new luster to the name. 

General Harrison's career as a whole was as beautiful 
and symmetrical as his individual development. From the 
humble beginnings of a struggling young lawyer it broad- 
ened and rose like the flight of an eagle in widening and 
ascending circles to the zenith of human attainment. Then 
from his great office of president he came back to the bar, 
to be again a lawyer and win new renown in his profession. 
All too soon for clients, courts, friends and the world, death 
has suddenly cut short his work. His cases stand untried 
on the dockets ; his briefs unfinished on his desk. 

The race of great lawyers is not extinct. The profession 
renews its ranks ftom generation to generation, from the 
young blood and brains of a fruitful country. Great lawyers, 
undiscerned as vet, are in training for the days that are to 



come. But for to-day, as we think of him who has gone, 
and look about us, we see not his like. 

Any reference to the life of General Harrison, even as a 
lawyer, would be incomplete if it omitted that element of 
manhood without which all other things are insufficient to 
true greatness — the element of character — simple, strong, 
sincere, God-fearing, man-loving character. We can say it 
of more men, but we can not, after all, say more of any man 
than that he was a good man. To his learning, his eloquence, 
his skill as an advocate, his greatness as a lawyer, was added 
the crowning excellence of a pure and noble life and an un- 
spotted character. 

While we are met as lawyers to pay our tribute to the 
memory of the lawyer who has passed from us, scant justice 
will be done if we attempt to circumscribe his fame or con- 
fine his memory to the narrow and restricted field of the 
practicing lawyer. 

General Harrison was a lawyer; a great lawyer; but he 
was much more than a lawyer. In the heyday of his youth, 
when for him life was young and sweet, when his little chil- 
dren were playing round his knee and the wife of his youth 
was by his side, there came to him, as there came to all in 
those dark but glorious days, the cry of his distressed coun- 
try, and he denied not the call. 

His training, his education, his ambitions were all for 
peace, and the prizes that it offered to him, but turning his 
back upon them and the enticement and the sweet serenity 
of home and fireside, he buckled on his sword and rode 
forth at the head of the Seventieth Indiana, never to return 
until peace and honor came "with his happy feet to his long 
deserted home," having borne well his part in the immortal 
struggle for freedom and a restored country. 
13 



.^ 



He immediately resumed the active practice of the law, 
and speedily forged to the front, first in his county, then 
in his state, and finally in the nation, and there, with the 
many qualities that have been mentioned, easily held a front 
rank until the voice, first of his own state, then of all the 
people of all the states, called him to a supreme position in 
the nation. 

His one term in the senate was not crowded with great 
incidents or great achievements, but rather, as were his 
career in the army and his service at the bar, a great prep- 
aration for the greater career he was required to fill as 
president. 

From 1 88 1 to 1887 was not an eventful period in the 
history of the country. The great questions that had come 
up by the war, and that had grown out of the condition of 
unrest that followed in its wake, had been, so far as legisla- 
tion could determine it, practically disposed of, and the 
economic questions that were then coming to the front and 
have since become so acute were just making their appear- 
ance. 

It was as president and as an ex-president that the great- 
est luster has been shed upon his name and fame. 

As a soldier he had learned well the lesson of love for his 
country. To him who has seen them in the smoke of battle, 
the stars and stripes have taken on a new meaning and have 
awakened love deep as the heart of man. His careful training 
as a lawyer had cleared his brain, strengthened his mind and 
enabled him to grasp and comprehend the intrinsic questions 
of the law, natidnal and international and constitutional, 
upon which our political fabric and our relations with abroad 
rest, and his quiet, studious, unostentatious service in the 
United States Senate gave him fitting and perfect training 
14 



in the correlative rights, duties and obHgations of the sepa- 
rate departments of the government, so that when the 4th 
of March, 1889, found him at the head of the executive de- 
partment of his country, it found him fully armed and 
equipped for every duty with which he might be confronted. 

In the estimation of the great majority of his countrymen, 
that date found him a fairly equipped country lawyer whom 
the advantage of location in a pivotal central state had ad- 
vanced to the lofty position that had been filled by Washing- 
ton, Jefferson, Lincoln and Grant. 

The 4th of March, 1893, and every day thenceforward, 
found him in the estimate of the whole nation a man fitted 
to fill and grace the place that had been honored by his great 
predecessors. For every position in his cabinet, secretar}'^ 
of state, secretary of treasury, attorney-general, or an}'^ 
other, the president was as fully equipped and as amply able 
to meet the manifold exigencies as they arose as though 
each particular place had been the duty of his life. He was 
in fact as well as in name the president of the country and 
of the whole country. Under his wise, conservative, cour- 
ageous statesmanship, the country advanced to a deserved 
recognition and honor among the unwilling nations of the 
earth. At home and abroad there was peace with honor and 
honor through peace. 

When he retired from the White House it was with the 
merited plaudit : "Well done, good and faithful servant." 

"And his fame on brightest pages, 
Penned by poets and by sages, 
Shall go sounding down the ages." 

From March 4, 1893, ^o the hour of his death he grew 
in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man. 

15 



The people recognized, as they had not fully comprehended 
whilst he was living in midst of that "fierce light that beats 
upon the throne," when the struggles and the bitterness of 
partisan rancor had blinded their eyes to their great deserts 
and his great achievement, what manner of man he was ; 
recognized his wise statesmanship, his profound ability, his 
intense patriotism and his devotion to his country and its 
best interests until, as great and embarrassing complications 
arose, the desire of all was to know what Harrison's views 
were. 

In these days when widening boundaries, increasing terri- 
tories and added peoples have laid upon us new responsibili- 
ties, when new policies, wise though they may be, were de- 
manding consideration, the people turned instinctively to 
the great man who is now no more, to catch from his tongue 
and pen the inspiration and the logic that they had learned 
to trust. 

"Milton thou shouldst be living this hour. England hath 
need of thee." 

The venerable head with its silvered crown shall no more 
greet our welcome eyes upon our streets. There is left to 
us now naught but the memory of his great name and his 
great achievement. 

"All ye that are about him bemoan him, and all ye that 
know his name say, how is the strong staff broken and the 
beautiful rod." R. S. Taylor, 

T. E. Howard, 
W. H. H. Miller, 
John S. Duncan, 
W. A. Ketch AM, 
Geo. W. Grubbs, 
Howard Cale, 
Harry J. Milligan. 
i6 



BY HONORABLE ROBERT S. TAYLOR. 

I am told that it is expected of me to add something to 
this meeting. I know not what I might say that would be- 
come the occasion, unless it may be that the spontaneous 
thought that swells up from a man's heart at the death of his 
friend will be sufficient. I can not say that I was intimately 
acquainted with General Harrison. I became somewhat 
acquainted with him at a very early period in my life. I met 
him a few times in the court-house — not very many times — 
once or twice as colleagues, once or twice as adversaries. 
I always heard his speeches when I could; I read all that 
he had to say relative to public questions that I could find. 
He and I were in like lines of life ; both lawyers ; both re- 
publicans; both giving some time to public questions. 
Through all my life he was to me the perfect man. My 
every contact with him was a reminder to me of how great 
he was in all the qualities of manhood. When I heard him 
speak it was with the despairing sense of the impossibility 
of my equaling his speech ; when I talked with him on public 
questions and laid my ideas alongside of his, it was with the 
discouraging sense of the poverty of my thought and the 
richness and strength of his. He was ever to me an inspira- 
tion, a model unattainable, always stimulating and inspiring. 
One element of his character, not always found in public 
men, was a sturdy, incorruptible, stubborn integrity. I never 
knew any public man who seemed to me to guide his life 
by as high an idea, or to be as incapable of an unworthy 
thought or motive. 

At such a time as this, I think, perhaps, those of us who 
knew the friend who is gone can render no better service 
than to bring forward some incident illustrating his charac- 

17 



ter. I was once walking with him in Washington, while 
he was senator, and he said to me : "What do you think 
about the propriety of a senator having stock in national 
banks?" I said, "I think he may do it with perfect pro- 
priety." "Well," he said, "congress is called upon constantly 
to legislate in regard to these banks. It has their affairs in 
hand." "So it has," said I, "and so it has all other kinds of 
business. Laws enacted by congress touch all kinds of busi- 
ness. If a senator can not ovv^n bank stock, he can not own 
anything." "Well," he said, "I have been trying to look at 
it that way, myself. Some friends of mine are proposing 
to organize a national bank out west. It is thought to be a 
progressing enterprise, and they have asked me to take some 
stock in it. I had pretty nearly concluded to do so when an 
incident occurred that changed my mind. There is another 
senator here, not connected with my friends, having no 
particular occasion to be taken into the enterprise, who 
heard of it, and he applied for some stock, stating that it was 
a good thing for a national bank to have a friend at Wash- 
ington. That turned the current of my thoughts." 

Those of us who have heard General Harrison speak — 
most of us, I think, — would be surprised to know that he 
was timid and nervous about the function of public speaking, 
but he was. He approached every occasion of public speech 
with a sense of timidity and reluctance. He spoke in Ft. 
Wayne, in the campaign of 1880, and stopped at my house. 
He was as nervous as a boy upon graduation. He said: 
"You have no idea how I dread this night. I would give 
one hundred and fifty dollars if I could run away and go 
home," and from that room he went forth and made one of 
the most brilliant speeches I ever heard. 

None of us can measure the value of the great man — of the 
18 



great example of the great life. Beside all his public serv- 
ice ; beside all he did for his state ; beside all he did for the 
nation, he has rendered invaluable service to us, and to the 
young men among us, for whom I can wish nothing better 
than that they should emulate his splendid example. 



BY HONORABLE TIMOTHY E. HOWARD. 

When the roll of great Americans is made up from age to 
age, as the centuries come and go, the name of Benjamin 
Harrison will always be found far up on the list. Of dis- 
tinguished lineage, he added luster to the glory of ancestry. 
But by no one who has walked the road of honor and reached 
the heights of greatness, was less due to adventitious aids. 
One aid he did have, the priceless advantage of a youth of 
poverty. Born in a modest home, struggle roused his native 
vigor, and made keen and strong an intellect of unusual 
breadth and force. Success came to him, not by flash or 
bound, but slowly, steadily, surely, as the result of persistent 
effort and unremitting toil ; and he developed, strengthened, 
broadened, evenly to the end, until the earnest student stood 
before the world, in the quiet modesty of greatness, as the 
first citizen of the republic. 

The same characteristics of thoroughness, finish, complete- 
ness, marked every phase of work in his varied life. In 
college ; at the bar ; on the field of battle ; in the senate ; in 
the executive chair ; before the tribunals of the world, plead- 
ing for the rights of nations and peoples, — he was ever the 
same resolute, resourceful, complete man. And the man 
grew greater with his years ; nor was this greatness depend- 
ent upon the station which for the time he occupied. He 
19 



grew deeper, broader, higher, even to the day when he lay 
down to die. Not while sitting in the highest deliberative 
body of the world ; not while directing the destinies of the 
great republic; not while pleading before the most august 
tribunal of history, did he so impress his greatness of char- 
acter upon the minds and hearts of his countrymen, as when, 
as a private citizen, in the last years of his life, he gave to 
the people, in the most exquisite language, the highest teach- 
ings of American patriotism and statesmanship. In this 
he recalls the memory of his comrade in arms and predeces- 
sor in the presidency, General Grant, whose true greatness 
and breadth of character did not reach out, unclouded to the 
world, until it streamed in sunset radiance from the heights 
of Mount McGregor. 

To us of Indiana who have been so honored by the re- 
flected glory that has proceeded from the career of Benjamin 
Harrison; to the members in particular of this State Bar 
Association, of which he was the first president, — it is a 
duty, as it is a melancholy pleasure, to make grateful record 
of our esteem, love and veneration for the honored states- 
man, whose departure from earth we mourn to-day, but 
whose memory remains with us as an inspiration to good 
citizenship and love of country for us and for our children 
during all the years to come. Let the memorv- of such men 
be cherished and their example followed, and the free insti- 
tutions of our beloved country will be secure forever. 



BY HONORABLE JOHN B. ELAM. 

The great lesson of these sad occasions is the same. Some 
truths are so hard to remember and make the rule of daily 



life that no appropriate occasion should pass without recall- 
ing and enforcing them. As to these subjects limits can 
hardly be fixed for reiteration. 

Once more then, while under the influence of the great 
life that has ended, those who are taking the first steps in 
our profession as well as those who may sometimes grow 
weary of its labors, may well be admonished that there is 
absolutely no career of usefulness or honor but in simple 
and sincere devotion to the duties that each day brings. 
Every temptation to seek easy or glittering paths must be 
treated as from the author of evil. 

From the humble beginning to the highest place, as citi- 
zen, soldier, statesman and citizen again, Benjamin Harri- 
son was everywhere and always the very incarnation of 
conscience, industry and courage. No duty was small 
enough to be neglected nor great enough to flee from. The 
old hard way which he followed upward is familiar enough. 
It is not needful to describe it, but it is, perhaps, quite as 
important as it ever was to emphasize the fact that it is 
absolutely the only way. 

The age in which General Harrison's lot was cast was 
full of doubt. Many circumstances conspired to make it a 
time of speculation as to things once believed to be funda- 
mental and fixed. 

Easy communication with great masses of men eager for 
something new, the extension of commerce, the rapid ac- 
cumulation of wealth, and much beside, gave great oppor- 
tunities for the demagogue and the charlatan. No man was 
more keenly alert to all that was passing and ready to accept 
what was good, but General Harrison may well have said 
"none of these things move me." 

He followed the simple life of the great men of all time, 

21 



and, as to the fundamental truths of reHgion and the rules 
essential to correct living, he adhered steadily to the faith 
and practice of the best of those who have made and pre- 
served us a nation. 

His career as a lawyer was no accident. He had from 
nature, or as a noble inheritance, a mind singularly clear 
and well ordered. But even greater talents have often been 
buried in indolence or indifference. With him every mental 
gift was accepted as in trust for his fellow-men and culti- 
vated to the utmost. 

It goes without saying that his preparation for the pre- 
sentation of causes was most thorough. I wish only to refer 
here to a few methods that were somewhat peculiar and 
characteristic. 

He was always most concerned about the actual cause 
committed to him. What had been said in others closely re- 
sembling it had consideration and furnished suggestions. 
He never cited many precedents, and I can not recall that 
he ever read more than a few lines from any book while 
addressing a court. 

He preferred to master the case under consideration, and 
present the principles that he believed should decide it in his 
own language. Adequate preparation tends to brevity of 
speech and his addresses were never long. Often his 
thoughts were expressed in sentences that were epigram- 
matic. 

The crude material for an argument was as the block of 
marble brought from the quarry to the sculptor. The office 
was the studio in which superfluities and deformities were 
cut away until a figure, bright, symmetrical and beautiful 
stood forth as a thing of life. 

What was done slowly and laboriously at first was after- 
22 



ward accomplished with marvelous facility. He was a 
student in the highest sense, but not a great reader of the 
mere words of other men. He burned little midnight oil, 
but caught quickly the thought of an opinion or book, and it 
was at once his own to be used and perhaps carried forward 
to new applications. His own mind rather than the library 
was the workshop. With him the argument usually pro- 
ceeded upon a broad and always upon a high plane, but 
long experience made him familiar, also, with the art of 
effective discussion. He was an adept in what may be 
called the cut and thrust of debate. 

I was struck with what he once said to me about the use 
of illustrations in argument. He advised me to use them 
sparingly and with the greatest care. He said that if an 
illustration fits the case exactly nothing is more effective, 
but if it does not and an adversary can turn it against your 
position, you can furnish him with no better weapon. "When 
I feel tempted," said he, "to use an illustration in any im- 
portant argument, I never venture to do so until I have 
stood it up in the office and walked all around it." 

I can think of nothing he ever said that better illustrates 
his method of study, and at the same time his "art of putting 
things," than this remark. Many a time I have seen him 
walking around ideas in the office until he was sure he had 
seen every aspect they could present. 

Constant practice in walking around his mental products 
before they were placed upon the world's market insured 
good workmanship. All will remember that when he en- 
tered upon a larger field and ingenuity and party zeal were 
exhausted in the effort to find some vulnerable point in a 
long series of public addresses, the critics walked around 
them in vain. They had been anticipated. 
23 



Of General Harrison as a public speaker it is not fitting 
that I should speak at length. A few words as to his per- 
sonal relations to his hearers may perhaps be pardoned. 

There never was an orator worthy of the name who did 
not feel the presence and inspiration of his audience. 

It has often been said that General Harrison's self-pos- 
session and dignified reserve amounted to a misfortune or 
a fault. But no orator ever felt the presence of his audience 
more profoundly. He was always a ready and convincing 
speaker, but at first he displayed little imaginative power 
or humor and had confidence in his own resources. 

When he began to make addresses on occasions of great 
public interest he always went to the rostrum with timid 
hesitation and sometimes almost with trepidation. 

I recall as a marked instance of this his manner and feel- 
ing when he went to Detroit to make his well-remembered 
address before a great political club. 

Often as he had won just applause, he never quite got rid 
of a certain apprehension that he might not be exactly equal 
to the cause or the occasion; and doubtless a speaker who 
becomes so absolutely confident and at his ease that his 
mental activities are not fully awakened has lost an impor- 
tant part of his power. 

I shall always remember vividly an incident of the presi- 
dential campaign of 1888. General Harrison was weary 
and worn with much thinking and not a little speaking. The 
republican state convention was in session in the largest hall 
of our city. The interest was great and an immense crowd 
was in attendance. General Harrison was to address the 
convention and the throng of spectators. As I walked with 
him from our law office it seemed that he had never ap- 
peared so pale and agitated. He made his way with diffi- 
24 



culty and apparent hesitation through the crowd and to the 
front of the stage. The great assemblage gave him such a 
reception as could only come from his friends in Indiana 
and his neighbors in Indianapolis. The inspiration of it 
was amazing ; the speaker found his voice, and in a moment 
the ringing tones, quivering with feeling, were finding the 
hearts of the great audience. Apprehension was lost in 
astonishment at the transformation. In the course of his 
address he spoke most feelingly of the then recent death of 
General Sheridan. What was occurring recalled the mar- 
velous transfiguration of that quiet little commander in 
camp into that tremendous Sheridan who, in the thickest of 
the conflict, rode along his lines looking like a new incarna- 
tion of Mars. 

With experience, General Harrison's readiness as a public 
speaker greatly increased. He was one of the men that did 
not cease to grow. In his later addresses there appears a 
humorous strain, keen but delicate and kindly. His intimates 
knew long ago that he possessed a rare humor, but he did not 
greatly value it, or, at least, thought that his public addresses 
should be occupied almost wholly with serious discourse. 
There were few occasions which he regarded as worthy of 
speech at all when he was not too much in earnest for jest- 
ing. 

Perhaps his greatest power as a speaker and writer was 
due to his rare ability to put what was, in a vague way, in 
all minds into striking form. 

"True wit is nature to advantage dress'd; 
What oft was thought but ne'er so well express'd." 

The poet's definition might well be extended so as to in- 
clude not only wit but eloquence and every form of impres- 
sive speech. 

25 



I will detain you with nothing biographical. For almost 
a half century Indiana's capital city has been the home of 
the illustrious dead. 

For almost forty years this great state has been proud 
of his growing fame and grateful for the beneficent influence 
of his life. Its chief events are familiar to every citizen and 
will be studied by generations yet to be. 

The blow is so heavy and recent that I can not at this 
time and in this presence seek to measure its extent or to 
give proper expression to the sense of loss felt by the Indiana 
bar. Still less am I able to speak adequately for the mem- 
bers of our local bar, to whom, for so many years, this great 
life has been a constant example and an inspiration to all 
worthy efifort. Nor can I in this place enter upon a critical 
analysis of the life and services of Benjamin Harrison and 
express a judgment as to their character and value. 

It was decreed that the great citizen who had once led in 
defending Rome from the invading Gaul should not be tried 
in the Campus Martins where the judges could see the 
capitol. 

Everything about us suggests some memory of our dis- 
tinguished dead, and recalls his services to his fellow-men. 
Here met one of the legislative bodies that often profited by 
his wise counsels and whose laws he helped to interpret. On 
this floor is the library where he studied and the court room 
where he urged the causes of his clients. Near by stands 
the magnificent monument to Indiana's martyrs, and a noble 
building dedicated to what he believed to be just principles 
of government. Both owe much to his suggestion and pow- 
erful advocacy. Not far away are other court rooms where 
his ringing voice seems yet to echo. At our feet lies a stately 
city that he saw grow almost from a village. There are the 
26 



public halls where, on great occasions, his voice was so 
often the trumpet call to duty, and the school-houses where 
gather the children who loved him. 

Every day of these long years his simple, manly, open 
life has strengthened every impulse to personal and civic 
virtue. Every good cause has had in him an earnest and 
efficient champion. He did much to make his home "no mean 
city," but one distinguished for benevolence and all good 
works. No, my friends, not here, not here ! I can not judge 
Manlius in sight of the capitol. 



BY HONORABLE WILLIAM R. GARDINER. 

Mr. Chairman — When one of the controlling spirits in 
a great enterprise dies, the enterprise is, to that extent, weak- 
ened, but when the master spirit is stricken down, the loss 
is immeasurable. We stand to-day midst the universal sor- 
row of a common woe. We are called upon to witness the 
touching verification of Webster's words : "When a great 
man falls, the nation mourns." Those who are gathered 
here at this hour to pay tribute to the memory of him, who, 
though lying dead, yet lives, and shall live forever, have, by 
personal contact in one of the arenas where the earthly rights 
of men are solved, enjoyed superior opportunities to observe, 
to study, to know and to measure the character of the great 
man, to whose greatness millions, with bowed and uncovered 
heads, stand to testify. Individual attestations of his worth 
from personal associations and relations, individual decora- 
tions of sorrow, seem to me almost selfish. Those are noble 
manifestations of the sympathy of the heart in condolences, 
but I take it that no man can properly stand by the broad 
27 



I 



way so justly and so heroically trod by the gifted Indianian, 
and claim more than a citizen's share of the luster of his 
fame, for the people of all the land with one accord acknowl- 
edge him their common king. He did not agree, I am told, 
on one occasion, when some other distinguished brethren 
expressed the wish that their end might come without warn- 
ing and without pain. It seemed to him that it were better 
to have at least a little while within which to arrange the 
drapery of the spirit before it should be ushered into the 
presence of the great King. Of him we fain believe that the 
drapery of the spirit is accepted, and we rejoice that the op- 
portunity was afforded him for its arrangement before he 
stood in the awful presence to receive the divine pronounce- 
ment: "Well done, thou good and faithful servant; enter 
thou into the joy of thy Lord." How fittingly the above 
expression typifies the exalted character of Benjamin Harri- 
son. Careful preparation for event and for the performance 
of duty he held to be essential in all those matters where his 
conduct was to operate upon the affairs of other men. We 
shall miss him in the flesh, but when the great trials are on ; 
when wise utterances seem to be called for ; when courage 
and patriotic duty and deeds are to be done ; when the 
grandeur and the glory of our free institutions are to be 
upheld; when the beauty and purity of Christian faith are 
to be exalted, he will be there an inspiration. 



BY AUGUSTUS LYNCH MASON. 

I shall feel undying gratitude for the fact that, during the 
last eight years of General Harrison's life, I was brought 
into close personal relations with him. He honored me with 
28 



his confidence and his friendship. It was permitted me to 
make a close observation of his great genius. The prominent 
quality of his mind was its equipoise. He was a searcher 
for truth; he never rested until he found it. Speaking to 
me once, he said : "Never state a proposition in a law suit 
until you have tramped all around it and looked at it from 
every side." At another time he said : "A lawyer who can 
not see the strength of his opponent's position is dangerous. 
The man who can only see one side of a question closes the 
debate so far as his own mind is concerned. Such a man is 
an unsafe counsellor." 

Notwithstanding his great natural endowment of intel- 
lectuality; notwithstanding the fact that his reason always 
maintained with him a clear ascendancy, he was still a man 
of intense feeling, and he recognized with unerring percep- 
tion the part which feeling plays in the affairs of man. On 
the occasion when Mr. Gladstone wrote his remarkable let- 
ter, after the Armenian massacre, in which he denounced the 
Sultan as "that wicked old man" and declared it to be the 
duty of England to protect Armenian Christians from mas- 
sacre, I spoke of Mr. Gladstone's letter to General Harrison 
and asked him if he did not think that it was unimportant 
because it was all mere sentiment. "Yes," said he, "it is mere 
sentiment ; but sentiment rules mankind.'' 

He had, indeed, profound sympathy for the weak and op- 
pressed. On the evening of March 6th, immediately pre- 
ceding the fatal illness with which he was seized on the fol- 
lowing morning, I rallied him about his recent article on the 
Boer war, saying that when he next went to England he 
would not be a welcome guest at the court. "Well," said 
he, with a quick flash of the eye, "I can go to see Krueger." 

He loved little children. Every spring he spent many 
29 



hours at the Summer Mission for Sick Children. He looked 
after the arrangements for cooking and baths. He gave at- 
tention to the size and comfort of the cribs and swings for 
these children of the poor. He was a devout man, a believer 
in God and in righteousness. He did not look on the future 
of this country with untroubled eyes. He believed that 
great perils were ahead of the republic. In his last con- 
versation with me, before his illness, almost his closing sen- 
tence was : "It looks as if force and greed ruled the world." 
iet, he was no real pessimist. A few weeks before his 
death we were talking of the utterances of a certain public 
man. General Harrison said: "The trouble is that he 
leaves God out of the twentieth century. In my judgment 
God will have a large share in the disposition of events in 
the twentieth century. Whoever leaves God out of his cal- 
culations can not rightly judge of the future." 

Although one of the greatest lawyers of his time, he can 
not be measured by that alone. Neither is the fact that he 
was president of the United States of supreme importance. 
Our belief is that his chiefest service to his country was his 
courageous advocacy of certain principles of government. 
In his latest hours he stood for a government of limited 
powers and against absolutism in whatever place and under 
whatever disguise it w^as sought to be exercised. He in- 
sisted that, in respect to the right of self-government and 
independence, the weakest nation in the world is morally 
equal to the strongest. 

In the belief that his most notable service to the world 
was his application of the moral law to the conduct of na- 
tions, as to that of individuals, we commit his name and fame 
to history. 



30 



BY HONORABLE JOHN W. KERN. 

Mr. Chairman — Under ordinary circumstances I am 
averse to appearing on occasions of this kind. But I con- 
fess that when notified last night that I had been selected as 
one of the speakers this afternoon, I was gratified, because 
it gave me an opportunity, as an earnest adherent of the 
political part}' to which General Harrison did not belong, to 
emphasize the proposition that all the people of Indiana are 
in mourning upon this day ; it gave me an opportunity, as a 
humble representative of nearly one-third of a million men 
of Indiana, good and true, who did not vote as General 
Harrison voted, to lay to-day a wreath upon his coffin, in 
token of their regard for Benjamin Harrison as a man, in 
token of their veneration for Benjamin Harrison, the patriot ; 
it gives an opportunity for me to testify in this presence as 
to the broad tolerance and great charity always manifested 
by General Harrison toward his political opponents. He 
was broad enough to understand that, in a free government 
like this, at least two great political parties are necessary to 
the well being of the whole people. And so, no matter how 
heated the conflict, no matter how fiercely raged the battle, 
General Harrison was always ready to yield to his political 
opponent the same liberty of conscience he claimed for him- 
self. It was my pleasure to attend the convention which 
nominated General Harrison for president of the United 
States. I shared in the pride felt by you republican Indian- 
ians for the honor conferred upon him. It was my pleasure, 
afterwards, when this population turned out to greet the 
delegation returning home, in celebration of the event, to take 
part in that demonstration, notwithstanding I was a candi- 
date upon the opposite ticket that year, and recognized in 

31 



General Harrison a most dangerous opponent. These things 
were done with hearty good will, and, to-day, in the presence 
of death, I thank God therefor. I first saw General Harri- 
son on the occasion of my first visit to the federal court 
room in this city, about the time I was admitted to the bar — 
perhaps a little before. The celebrated trial of Lambdin P. 
Milligan vs. Alvin P. Hovey et al., was in progress and was 
attracting great attention. Milligan had been convicted and 
sentenced to death by a military court-martial; which the 
Supreme Court of the United States afterwards held to be 
without lawful authority. Milligan's life had been saved by 
executive clemency, and he, after his long imprisonment had 
ended by reason of the decision of the supreme court, 
brought suit against the military officers who had constituted 
the court-martial, and others, for damages for false impris- 
onment. Under the decision of the supreme court referred 
to, there was no question as to the technical liability of the 
defendants, and the real question before the jury was wheth- 
er the plaintiff should recover more than nominal damages. 
There were many lav^?yers engaged in the case, but I only 
remember that Governor Hendricks was for the plaintiff and 
General Harrison for the defendants. General Harrison's 
argument in that case was in my judgment one of the great- 
est and certainly one of the most effective ever delivered in 
Indiana. It was a plea for his comrades, at a time when the 
smoke of battle was yet in the air. He argued that they 
could have had no malice— that, as soldiers, they were re- 
quired to obey the order which detailed them as members of 
the court-martial— 'that they were performing a patriotic duty 
as American soldiers, and that it would be monstrous to 
compel an American soldier to pay civil damages for obey- 
ing the order of a superior officer. 
32 



I have never forgotten the telling effect with which, in 
this connection, he quoted those lines from Tennyson's 
Charge of the Light Brigade : 

"Theirs not to reason why; 
Theirs not to make reply; 
Theirs but to do and die." 

No skilled elocutionist ever recited those words with great- 
er effect than did General Harrison in the presence of that 
j\iry— a jury which had no difficulty in adopting his view of 
the case. 

All Indianians followed the course of General Harrison 
with feelings of pride. We always read with interest his 
polished public addresses, and great legal arguments, and 
when as a sort of culmination of his professional career, he 
appeared before that great international court in Europe 
with Sir Richard Webster— the present Lord Chief Justice 
of England — as the chief opposing counsel against him, all 
our hearts thrilled with pride as we followed his course in 
that litigation and saw that there was more reflected glory 
for Indiana in his conduct in that great contest. 

Others will speak of his splendid record as a soldier of the 
Union; of his great patriotic character as president of the 
United States ; but it has occurred to me that if his military 
record were obliterated, the history of his administration as 
president effaced, his record as a public character forgotten, 
still Benjamin Harrison would tower above most of his fel- 
low-men because of his life as a model citizen and a Chris- 
tian gentleman. 

It will be remembered always, and it is perhaps the crown- 
ing glory of his career, that whether in the great charges at 
Resaca and Peach Tree Creek, in the presidential chair, or 

LofC. ^^ 



in the great international court across the sea, with the eyes 
of the world upon him — wherever he was, he kept his course 
Heavenward all the time and never lost sight of the duties 
he owed to his God and his fellow-men. 

Brethren of the bar, the arrows of death have flown thick 
and fast in our midst during the few years I have been a 
citizen of Indianapolis. In that brief time the great firm of 
Baker, Hendricks, Hord and Hendricks has been obliter- 
ated ; McDonald and Butler have fallen ; Porter and Fishback 
are gone; Napoleon B. Taylor, Solomon Claypool, Living- 
ston Howland and Charles L. Holstein have been called to 
their reward, with scores of others of our brothers of less 
prominence. 

It seems but yesterday that I stood within a few feet of 
General Harrison as he presided over the meeting of the 
bar, called to take appropriate action on the death of his late 
partner, Mr. Fishback. How well we remember his tearful 
eye, and his voice tremulous with emotion as he paid that 
feeling and eloquent tribute to his departed friend. He ap- 
peared on that occasion to be in perfect health, and his hold 
on life seemed as firm and strong as that of any gentleman 
present ; yet he is gone. Who is to be the next ? Aly breth- 
ren, it is doubtless true that none of us can hope to attain to 
General Harrison's eminence as a lawyer or statesman. His 
equal in that regard is not here. But the humblest and 
feeblest amongst us may hopefully strive to be his equal in 
one important respect. We may emulate his virtues as a 
private citizen, as a God-fearing man, a Christian gentleman, 
so that when we respond to the dread summons, our brethren 
can say of us that best of all things said about General Harri- 
son to-day : "He was ready — he was not afraid." 



34 



BY HONORABLE SMILEY N. CHAMBERS. 

An intimate acquaintance with a man for twenty-five 
years, bringing with it a sincere friendship, should enable one 
both to judge and speak accurately of his qualities of mind 
and heart. The man of simple habits, with love of, and de- 
votion to, home life, dominated by religious faith, and occu- 
pied in the performance of high duties, can not, if he would, 
easily avoid a just estimate of his character by those who 
are close to him. Peradventure, those farther from him 
might misjudge him, taking reserve of manner for lack of 
sympathy ; austerity for hauteur ; but at the fireside, in the 
law office, during long walks and rides for purposes of 
recreation, the heart is wide open to view. It is under these 
circumstances true knowledge is acquired and strong friend- 
ships are created. It is from this, to me, blessed relationship, 
I speak to-day of our illustrious dead, so far as it is proper 
to speak out of such a relationship. 

The strength of General Harrison's life lay in the high 
estimate by him of the value of the talents with which he 
had been endowed. He did not overestimate the quality of 
these gifts. In his view they were his sole inheritance, and 
he was charged by his Creator with the high duty of their 
best cultivation and honest use. It has seemed to me that 
this conviction was the center of gravity of his great and 
useful life and high accomplishments, around which all his 
acts revolved in near or remote degree. Firmly anchored 
in this sentiment, possessing a sublime faith in his Creator, 
believing that accountability was due to him alone, he filled 
every day with a conscientious performance of its duties. 
It is easy, therefore, to see that from the beginning to the 
end his life was growth — an unusual thing for one who lives 
35 



almost his three score and ten. This fact has been empha- 
sized by one of our most distinguished citizens on yesterday, 
in what seems to me to be the noblest tribute of all : "More 
than for anything else, except the high patriotism of his 
latest utterances, do I honor General Harrison for the in- 
centive to continuous growth afforded by his own beautiful 
example of continuous growing." 

What a solid foundation to build upon, and what a noble 
structure of christian manhood our dead friend was ! 

He borrowed nothing of success from his illustrious ances- 
try. He had a just pride in it, but fought for and won his 
own honors. There was no boasting of his lineage, yet it 
was fully appreciated. In his home, for his own eyes, and 
the joy of his family and friends, were pictures and souve- 
nirs of those of his own blood who had wrought great things 
before. But they were household penates, loved, venerated 
and cherished, but too sacred for display and public gaze. 

It is easy to see how such a man would value time. In 
his view it was given him as trustee, the cestuis que trustent 
were those to whom he owed the duty of service. He once 
said to me: "I can not carry the burdens of duty as easily 
as many men. I carry them very heavily." 

These elemental qualities account in large measure for the 
character of the man ; for his thoroughness in the perform- 
ance of every duty that devolved upon him. They also re- 
veal to us the reasons why he was not always received by 
all men with acclaim. He had no time to throw away ; no 
talents to waste on immaterial things. Hence he traveled 
little. He had not crossed the continent until he was Presi- 
dent of the United States. He did not go abroad until his 
term expired, and then went as a lawyer engaged in a great 



36 



trial. His years were full of labors and consequent hon- 
ors. 

I have spoken only of some elemental qualities of this 
man. He also had many graces. The sturdy oak, burly in 
trunk and strong in fiber, also has its branches and foliage, 
beauty as well as strength. So this man's devotion to his 
friends was true and steady as the needle to the pole, and 
blessed all who came within the shadow of his great per- 
sonality. His love of children was sweet and tender. I 
have seen this manifested on many occasions in many years. 
The tenderest memories I have of him are of this kind. 
How the hearts of all the parents are touched by those ten- 
der and pathetic last words to his little girl, "What wouldn't 
I give to be able to take a walk with you ?" 

It is told of him that, in crossing the ocean, when the sea 
was heavy and the ship rolled so that he could not keep on 
his feet, he sat in his berth all day long, with his little girl as 
his companion, cutting and fashioning dolls from paper 
for her pleasure and amusement. This man who had com- 
manded armies, tried great suits, contended with the greatest 
minds in debate, served as president of the United States, 
honored of kings, the joyful companion of a little girl. It 
takes a great man to talk pleasingly to children. 

His devotion to his family was a benediction to all of us — 
his friends — in this beautiful city of beautiful homes. 

In these last ceremonies and tributes of affection, I can not 
think of him as the general of armies ; the austere senator ; 
the exalted president of the nation ; the fascinating orator ; 
the great lawyer. All these attainments are submerged 
and lost to view in my love for the man, the departed friend. 



37 



BY HONORABLE CHARLES L. JEWETT. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen — The lateness of the 
hour forbids that I should say more than a few words, and 
I shall not employ that brief time in attempting to add 
anything to what has been said in praise of the distinguished 
man whose death we here mourn. Since the hour that he 
passed away, press, pulpit and bar throughout the nation 
have extolled and eulogized this first citizen of Indiana 
until the vocabulary of praise seems exhausted. I prefer 
rather to say a few words to my professional brethren upon 
two thoughts suggested by words of Judge Woods on tak- 
ing the chair and by remarks contained in the memorial ad- 
dress read in your hearing. Judge Woods said that the 
life and work of any eminent lawyer entered into and in- 
fluenced the affairs of men for good ; and the memorial sug- 
gests that the pageantry and the mourning is for the dead 
general, the dead senator, the dead president, and that this 
meeting is for the departed lawyer. This is true. Sitting 
here I have thought, if we should go out and from among 
the multitude single out any one, not a lawyer, and ask him 
what were General Harrison's triumphs at the bar, what 
were the cases in which he wrought good and wherein which 
he established the purity and strength of truth, he would be 
unable to answer. Yet, General Harrison spent the great 
portion of his manhood in the practice of law, and was, dur- 
ing the major portion of that time, easily the first lawyer of 
Indiana, and the first lawyer of Indiana, as we know, — and 
if we do not know it we gather from what has been said 
here, — is easily the first lawyer in the highest test of a trial 
lawyer. What is the thought that comes from this? And 
we must gain, from General Harrison's death and these 
38 



services, my brethren, something for our own future intel- 
ligence and strength. The death of no man, no matter how 
appalling its loss to humanity and his country,— the simple 
fact of his death is of no value or importance to those who 
live, except for the example he left, except as an added proof 
of the great truth that all men must die, and as evidence of 
the value of right living. This feature that I have mentioned 
establishes the hard truth that the lawyer lives only during 
his career as a lawyer. For others is the applause and the 
memory of posterity. If the highest proof of this state- 
ment is to be asked, I would give it in the fact that this great 
citizen and brother of ours, whose remains lie below in honor, 
is remembered for things entirely apart from the practice 
of his profession by ninety-nine one-hundredths of all the peo- 
ple of the state that loved him so well and honors him so 
highly. Mr. Carnegie, in a letter the other day, when he was 
likely bestowing money that once would have been a king- 
dom's ransom, used an expression that struck me with pecu- 
liar force. It was a letter he transmitted, in which he dedi- 
cated to certain uses at Carnegie and Homestead five mil- 
lions of dollars. He was speaking of the difficulties that 
men of wealth experience in giving up business, and their 
disinclination to do so. He explained this thing, so far as 
men of wealth are concerned, by saying, and I thought it a 
terse and capital saying, that the trouble with most men of 
wealth is that when they have enough on which to retire 
they have nothing to retire to. Men who have held the 
highest position in the nation have, in the past, found diffi- 
culty in finding congenial,, dignified, suitable and happy re- 
lations after retirement from public life. History records 
more or less welcome spectacles of the latter days of pres- 
idents, but General Harrison had something to retire to, 
39 



and what was that? The practice of the noblest of all 
intellectual professions. And back to Indianapolis he came 
and retired to that. He realized the truth of the statement 
that it is perseverance that keeps honor bright. So he re- 
turned to the practice of law, and became the first president of 
our bar association. Therefore, he has exemplified in his 
own life the truths that I would ask you to consider in con- 
nection with this solemn occasion, for out of every event 
we should get something more than eulogy. We should 
gather for ourselves some inspiration and some strength, 
because the mighty and noble dead, whose remains lie be- 
low, needs nothing from us ; his fame is secure in the hearts 
of his countrymen and in the archives of undying history. 
But he came back to us, my brethren, he came back here 
to the bar association of Indiana, and became its first presi- 
dent. I remember when we met on the second occasion of 
the annual meeting. Several worthy gentlemen were 
anxious to be chosen, a most deserving ambition. It oc- 
curred to me that General Harrison ought always to be the 
president of the State Bar Association while he lived and 
was willing to serve, and I suggested his second election. 
It was taken without question. You remember how he 
presided that night at the Grand Hotel banquet. The man 
who had stood in the sight of the world, standing for Ameri- 
can honor and patriotism in the solution of great interna- 
tional problems, told me, as we left the hotel, that he had 
never spent a more enjoyable, social evening in his life than 
he had spent with us Hoosier lawyers there. It was because 
of this wholesome love for his own people, his devotion to 
the duties that were at hand, that Benjamin Harrison will 
forever abide in our memories, the fragrant and gracious 
recollection of a noble man. 

40 



BY HONORABLE DANIEL W. COMSTOCK. 

Mr. Chairman — I hesitate very greatly to occupy even a 
moment of time. I have known General Harrison for some 
twenty years, but not so intimately as many others were 
privileged to know him. In the presence of his friends and 
professional brethren, I certainly could not say anything 
upon his brilliant career as a soldier and as a lawyer that 
has not already been better said. The accident of distin- 
guished birth in a republic imposes uncommon burdens upon 
its subject. General Harrison bravely assumed those bur- 
dens and added new laurels to a lustrous lineage and ances- 
tral honors. It was his fortune to begin his career in the 
community where he first took his lessons in the hard school 
of the law, and it was his fortune many years afterward to 
return to that same community and, surrounded by his 
friends who loved and honored him in life, and who sincerely 
mourn his departure, to seek his final repose. We know what 
General Harrison was truly, and we truly know what he 
did; but what additional obligation he may have placed 
his countrymen under to him had he longer lived, we can not 
know. It must be a source of sincere gratification to his 
friends to remember that he passed away in the fullness of 
his mental vigor, full of honors if not full of years. It has 
been my privilege to live in that portion of the state in which 
intelligence and probity in public and private life are most 
highly approved. In that section of the state which long 
years ago believed in the personal freedom of the citizen and 
of the individual and made sacrifices in that cause ; in that 
community and portion of the state which later, when the 
integrity of the Union was threatened, entered into honora- 
ble rivalry with other portions of the state in its defense, 
41 



and that later, when the country was further imperiled, gave 
to the republic the services of its favorite son, the great 
governor of Indiana ; in that community, where purity of 
public life is honored most. General Harrison has, for many 
years, been regarded as a bright example. And, in the ab- 
sence of worthier sons from that section of the state, I have 
thought that it would have been in bad taste for me not to 
have attempted, at any rate, however unworthily I may have 
succeeded, to add my humble tribute to those already paid. 



42 



I 



APR 29 1901 



LIBRftRY OF 



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CONGRESS 



013 788 mi 



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